A selection of English ESL speaking and listening printables

This is a fun way to get students into pairs to practice reading, speaking, and listening, all while learning useful new vocabulary and common English questions.



It is aimed at Japanese high school level but could also work for Junior High School students.



I usually demonstrate this at the beginning by asking the whole class questions (majority rules), and don't reveal the personality types until the end.



Note: When students are in pairs, have one student read and the other simply listen. They can look at their vocabulary list or ask questions such as 'what is (word) in Japanese?'.

Personality Quiz! Reading, speaking, and listening activity.

text created to prepare for edexcel e1 english speaking and listening test. can be used for practising verbs and present simple tense, especially third singular

text about sonia - based on edexcel speaking and listening test

Ingredients & Tools:Hamburger bun, ground beef, cheese, lettuce, tomato, onion, ketchup, mustard, salt, pepper, frying pan, spatula
Cooking Verbs:Mix, shape, cook, flip, add, spread, assemble, serve
Sequencing Language:First / Next / Then / After that / Finally


Students will learn food vocabulary, imperative verbs, and sequencing language by following a simple hamburger recipe while practicing speaking and listening skills

Pair Work exercise useful for practising speaking and listening skills and giving/following instructions. Put students in pairs and give each half of the worksheet. Student B tells student B where to go on the grid and what to write or draw. Make students can not see each other´s sheet. This ws allows the whole class to practise simultaneously. At the end of the exercise, Ss should compare their answers to the teacher´s answer sheet. Enjoy. 

Pair Work: Listen, draw, write (4)

Pair Work: Listen, draw, write (5)

Listening and speaking. Art and Installations. The tasks can be used in a listening and speaking lesson or be a warm-up exercise for a speaking class. Students learn what installations are and examine several examples of famous art installations. Tasks are followed by speaking about meaning of installations and examples of artwork from students’ country.  The tasks can be used for independent studies or distance-learning classes dealing with the topics of Art, Design, or museums.

Listening and speaking. Art and Installations.

New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Resolutions is a listening, reading, speaking and writing worksheet. The audio https://english-portal.com.ua/worksheet/new-year-s-eve-and-new-year-s-resolutions#topadv 

This worksheet was created by https://english-portal.com.ua

New Year’s Eve and New Year's Resolutions

Several activities about the rain in films:

1) Learning vocabulary about the rain.

2) Speaking about likes and dislikes, emotions.

3) Watch and talk about a video with over 40 clips from movies. How many of those films have you seen? Write down the plot of one or more of the films. Tell a story.

4) Listening: ´Kiss The Rain´ by Thriving Ivory.

5) Fill in the gaps activity. 

6) Sing.

(Key included)

It's raining

This is based off of a youtube video about the slow evolution of fan made Lego movies that eventually became the now famously popular LEGO MOVIE. The URL is at the top of the sheet. This is meant for a listening and speaking class. You can put this in a week with a theme of toys, film, creativity, or simply entertainment.



Allow plenty of time for this one. It's definitely for upper intermediate to advanced students and is meant for middle school up through college.



There is some technical vocabulary that you might have to go over after the first run through. You can also rewind and replay certain clips.

The Evolution of The Lego Movie

A list of detailed questions for the movie Free Guy. Answer keys included. It's a fun movie and suitable for kids from Level A2 to B1. They have to pay attention to the movie details in order to answer these questions. Best for teachers to guide them through the questions before the movie.

Free Guy Movie Details Discussion

Halloween traditions and celebrations : reading, listening, vocabulary, speaking. 

The audio and keys https://english-portal.com.ua/worksheet/halloween-traditions-and-celebrations#topadv

This worksheet was created by https://english-portal.com.ua

Halloween traditions and celebrations.

33 questions discussing the Olympics, sports and a bit of health. I normally use speaking exercises at the start of my classes to get every body speaking and linking in to the lesson theme/topics. With London 2012 coming up this would be a great way to get any classes from elementary-intermediate talking and thinking about the Olympics. Just cut them out, place them face down in the middle of the room and get students to pick them at random and then ask another student - go around the class and repeat.

Olympics and sports discussion.

Culture, intercultural communication, cross-cultural communication

Adjectives to describe feelings, emotions

Adjectives to describe personality and character

Adjectives: Gradable / Non-gradable adjectives

Articles: Definite or indefinite article (a, an or the)

BE + infinitive structures (e.g. he was to become famous)

Clauses of contrast (e.g.  although, while)

Clauses of purpose (e.g. in order to, so that, so as to)

Clauses of reason (e.g. because, because of, due to, as, since)

Cleft sentences (e.g. It's Joey we're looking for)

Comparison: Comparative adjectives and structures

Comparison: Superlative adjectives and structures

Conditional 2 (second conditional) - would

Conditionals: Conditional phrases (e.g. unless, provided that, as long as)

Conjunctions (aka connectives, e.g. and, but, or, so, then)

Contractions (shortened forms, e.g. don't, aren't, etc.)

Determiners (words that can come before nouns)

Formal and informal English (politeness or colloquial language)

Future perfect continuous (progressive) tense

Future perfect simple and continuous (progressive) tense

Future phrases (e.g. be about to, bound to, likely to, due to, set to + INF)

Homonyms (two words with the same pronunciation - homophones and homographs)

It as preparatory subject (e.g. it's raining, it's nice of you to)

Linking verbs (aka copulas, e.g. I am a student)

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how to accuse somebody of something in English

how to apologize, say sorry, forgive and express regret in English

how to ask for information and make inquiries in English

how to ask for something, make requests in English

how to blame somebody for something in English

how to defend yourself from criticism in English

how to deny or admit something in English

how to describe things or people in English

how to emphasize important things in English

how to encourage or discourage people in English

how to evaluate people or progress in English

how to express agreement /disagreement in English

how to express approval and disapproval  in English

how to express cause and effect in English

how to express interest in something in English

how to express likelihood, probability in English

how to express likes and dislikes in English

how to express sequence and chronology in English

how to express shock and disbelief in English

how to express sympathy and condolences in English

how to give permission, authorization in English

how to inform somebody about some news in English

how to interpret what was said in English

how to keep a conversation going in English

how to make guesses about something in English

how to make, accept and refuse offers in English

how to order or make a booking in English

how to persuade, convince people in English

how to praise people and express appreciation in English

how to reassure somebody of something in English

how to refuse and object to something in English

how to remind people of something in English

how to rephrase, paraphrase what was said in English

how to say thank you, express gratitude in English

Nouns: Collective nouns (team, class, family, committee)

Nouns: Proper nouns (names of people, cities, companies)

Oxymorons (phrases with words of contradictory meaning, e.g. living dead)

Participles: Past participle (e.g. HAVING DONE)

Participles: Present participle (e.g. DOING)

Parts of Speech (aka word classes, e.g. nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs)

Past perfect continuous (progressive) tense

Phonetics (pronunciation, IPA, phonetic symbols)

Plural nouns: regular plurals with S ending

Prefixes (e.g. A, UN, IM, DIS, MIS, EN, etc. )

Prepositions vs adverbs (e.g. before me, saw him before.)

Prepositions: Double prepositions (e.g. out of)

Prepositions: Participle prepositions (e.g. pending, concerning)

Prepositions: Phrase prepositions (e.g. by means of)

Present perfect continuous (progressive) tense

Present perfect simple or present continuous tense

Present simple tense: S for third person singular verbs

Present simple vs continuous (progressive) tense

Pronouns: EACH OTHER, ONE ANOTHER (reciprocal pronouns)

Pronouns: Possessive pronouns (e.g. my, mine)

Pronouns: Reflexive pronouns (e.g. myself, yourself))

Pronouns: SOMEBODY, ANYBODY, EVERYBODY, NO ONE, NOTHING, etc.

Pronouns: THIS, THAT, THESE, THOSE (demonstratives)

Pronouns: YOU and THEY to talk about people in general

Quantifiers (e.g. some, many, much, any, few, little)

Questions: WH questions (open-ended questions)

Reported speech: reported questions (indirect questions)

There is / there are / there was / there were / there will be, etc.

Verbs: Transitive or intransitive verbs (words that can or cannot stand with objects)

Working with Paragraphs: ordering, titling

Role play, miming, drama activity or improv game

Pictionary (picture dictionary) or picture matching

Writing an opinion essay (persuasive essay)

Learners who are Pre-A1 have just begun learning English and will first learn how to:<ul><li>Say the letters in the alphabet and numbers</li><li>Say hello, talk about names and age</li><li>Name the colors and dates, express likes and dislikes</li></ul>

Absolute beginners who have begun to learn the letters and numbers

Learners taking the A1 Elementary exam should be able to:<ul><li>Introduce themselves and ask and answer questions about personal details such as where he/she lives, things he/she has, people he/she knows.</li><li>Communicate using very basic phrases as long as the other person talks slowly and clearly and is prepared to help.</li><li>Main grammar points to know: common adjectives & adverbs of frequency, going to, how much/how many, imperatives, I'd like, 's – possessive, common prepositions of place and time, present simple & continuous, there is/are</li></ul>

A very basic tourist level, which is enough for buying food and a bus ticket

Learners taking the A2 Pre-intermediate exam should be able to:<ul><li>Understand sentences and frequently used expressions (e.g. very basic personal and family information, shopping, local geography, employment).</li><li>Complete tasks that are routine and exchange information about familiar matters.</li><li>Describe matters of immediate need in simple terms.</li><li>Main grammar points to know: countable/uncountable nouns, adverbs of frequency, future will/going to, much/many, present perfect, past simple, past continuous, common phrasal verbs, common modals: can/should</li></ul>

A tourist who can do basic conversations about the past, present and future

Learners taking the B1 Intermediate exam should be able to:<ul><li>Understand points regarding family, work, school or leisure-related topics.</li><li>Deal with most travel situations in areas where the language is spoken.</li><li>Create simple texts on topics of personal interest.</li><li>Describe experiences, events, dreams, and ambitions, as well as opinions or plans in brief.</li><li>Main grammar points to know: question tags, intensifiers: too/enough, future tenses, past tenses, modals, conditionals, wh-questions in the past</li></ul>

Learners who can deal with both familiar and routine situations, in friendly and work contexts

Learners taking the B2 Upper-intermediate exam should be able to:<ul><li>Understand the main ideas of complex text on both concrete and abstract topics, including technical discussions in his/her field of specialization.</li><li>Interact with fluency and spontaneity that makes regular interaction with native speakers quite possible without difficulty for either party.</li><li>Produce clear, detailed text on a wide range of subjects and explain an opinion on a topical issue giving the advantages and disadvantages of various options.</li><li>Main grammar points to know: perfect tenses, mixed conditionals, modals in the present, phrasal verbs, reported speech, wish, relative clauses</li></ul>

The level where you can be a tour guide for your foreign friends and talk about a lot of topics, even abstract ones, with ease and fluency

Learners taking the C1 Advanced exam should be able to: Express ideas fluently and spontaneously without much obvious searching for expressions. Use language flexibly and effectively for social, academic and professional purposes. Understand a wide range of demanding, longer texts. Produce clear, well-structured, detailed text on complex subjects, using linking phrases (=words that connect ideas between sentences). Main grammar points to know: inversion, mixed conditionals, modals in the past, all passive forms, phrasal verbs (all patterns), wish/if only for regrets

Learners who can smoothly communicate in every walk of life, read long texts and write well

Learners taking the C2 Proficient exam should be able to:<ul><li>Understand almost everything read or heard with ease.</li><li>Summarize information from a variety of sources into a coherent presentation.</li><li>Express themselves using precise meaning in complex scenarios.</li><li>Can express him/herself spontaneously, very fluently and precisely, differentiating finer shades of meaning even in the most complex situations</li></ul>

Get here and you are ready to study in English at university

265 Speaking and listening English ESL worksheets pdf & doc